There’s something exciting about a production that combines cabaret, burlesque and circus, with dazzling physical feats, risqué humour, elaborate costumes and a touch of mischief. Making its first visit to Melbourne at the Melbourne Spiegel Haus, La Ronde features an international cast whose talents span aerials, acrobatics, comedy and music, promising plenty of surprises to keep audiences entertained and titillated.
It’s an absolute joy to watch Swedish comedian David Eriksson work his way through his bag of tricks. Dressed in a punk top, sparkling pink skirt and gumboots, he brings a rock ’n’ rollness to his routine, with a cheeky irreverence that makes him instantly likeable. His oral dexterity has to be seen to be believed, adding a deliciously suggestive edge to his performance.
Tim Ellis has been practising magic for over 40 years, and in that time he’s transformed part of his home into an intimate 32-seat performance space. His current offering, House of Games, has proved so popular that the 2026 season is sold out, with additional Sunday matinees added and an extended run scheduled well into 2027.
Drawing on his love of board games, the show uses well-known favourites as the starting point for a series of close-up tricks that will leave you questioning what you’ve just witnessed. Associated with childhood, family gatherings and friendly competition, these items are steeped in familiarity, but Ellis turns them into something unpredictable, with illusions that are all the more baffling for taking place right in front of us.
Your twenties are supposed to be some of the most defining years of your life. You go to university, get jobs, move out, make new friends and start figuring out what you want from life. In Like Young, writer and director Adeodatus McCormack brings four young people together over 24 hours as they deal with circumstances that could potentially change the course of their lives. The problem is that very little of it proves particularly engaging or ground-breaking.
The biggest issue stems from the writing, in that much of the drama occurs off stage and separately from the other characters. Oliver’s (Michael Crisafulli) uncle has died, leaving him $500,000 in the will while the rest of his family receives nothing. This feels like an uncommon problem to have and a strange one to put a 20 year old to experience, when it could just focus on processing the grief of losing his uncle.
Bella (Sabrina Rault) is caught up in complications over her ex-boyfriend, Luke (who never appears on stage), while Paris (Max Nunes-Cesaar) is also coming to terms with the death of a relative. These are significant events for the characters, but so much happens away from the group, that their problems barely become personal between them. We learn about what they are dealing with, but we don't get to see those experiences meaningfully affect their relationships with each other. For a play about people navigating their changing lives, they spend surprisingly little time actually connecting.
Being late to your own stand-up show is a comedian's nightmare, but for Blake Everett it is the premise of an entire show. Tight Five follows Blake as he bounds across Melbourne to The Motley Bauhaus, encountering a succession of strange characters and increasingly ridiculous obstacles along the way, all for the chance to deliver five minutes of stand-up. What starts as a simple race against the clock quickly becomes a playful mix of stand-up, theatre, and improvisation.
From the moment Blake wakes up, Tight Five is happy to break the fourth wall, with him acknowledging the audience as he works through his morning routine. It becomes even more meta when we realise the stand-up show he is late for is the very show we are watching. When he calls someone in the audience to discuss whether they can somehow pause the show so we don't know what is happening, the distinction between Blake's world and ours becomes deliberately blurred.
When was the last time someone read you a book? Not an audiobook, not a podcast, but someone actually sat beside you and read the words out loud? For most adults, probably a very long time ago, but there is something wonderfully indulgent about being read to, particularly when you are lying on a bed and someone else is doing all the work.
Dashiel Reads To You turns this simple idea into a 30-minute escape from the outside world. The small gallery at Smith & Gertrude has been transformed into a cosy reading space, complete with a bed, bookshelf and chair belonging to Dashiel’s grandmother. Visitors can choose a book from the bookshelf, which has a mix of fiction and non-fiction, including Wicked and a dictionary, or bring their own. I brought along Memorial by Bryan Washington, a book I started several months ago before forgetting about it and had it sitting on my bedside table since. I handed it to Dashiel, who read me the first two chapters.
That tension is where SLUGS gets much of its comedy. The pair are constantly aware that almost anything can be interpreted as a statement, especially when it comes to their bodies. A seemingly harmless song acquires a political reading, while an unexpected reference to guns or gender sends the show careening in another direction. Their response is to not address the issue at all, but instead throw something else at us. This gives the production an exciting and unpredictable rhythm. Just when you think you have worked out where a scene is heading, it can veer into puppetry, animation, music or some outrageous physical gag.
From the moment the audience settles in, it is clear this is not going to be your traditional service. The trio embrace the theatricality of worship, moving between song, dance, burlesque and comedy while playing with the rituals and language associated with the church. There is a knowing irreverence to it all, but the production is not simply about making fun of faith. Instead, it takes these traditions and gives them a very queer, very cabaret interpretation.
The show is divided into several chapters, including Communion, Temptation and Baptism. Each comes with a passage from the Book of Hysterium, offering the audience a subtle tease of what is about to come. That unpredictability is part of the appeal of Mass Hysteria. You never quite know what is coming next.
